Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 4 | Page 8

most of the
petitioners, and that they would ask him for answers. To spare him this
annoyance I used often to acquaint them beforehand of what had been
granted or refused, and what had been the decision of the First Consul.
He next perused the letters which I had opened and laid on his table,

ranging them according to their importance. He directed me to answer
them in his name; he occasionally wrote the answers himself, but not
often.
At ten o'clock the 'maitre d'hotel' entered, and announced breakfast,
saying, "The General is served." We went to breakfast, and the repast
was exceedingly simple. He ate almost every morning some chicken,
dressed with oil and onions. This dish was then, I believe, called 'poulet
a la Provencale'; but our restaurateurs have since conferred upon it the
more ambitious name of 'poulet a la Marengo.'
Bonaparte drank little wine, always either claret or Burgundy, and the
latter by preference. After breakfast, as well as after dinner, he took a
cup of strong coffee.
--[M. Brillat de Savarin, whose memory is dear to all gourmands, had
established, as a gastronomic principle, that "he who does not take
coffee after each meal is assuredly not a men of taste."-- Bourrienne.]--
I never saw him take any between his meals, and I cannot imagine what
could have given rise to the assertion of his being particularly fond of
coffee. When he worked late at night he never ordered coffee, but
chocolate, of which he made me take a cup with him. But this only
happened when our business was prolonged till two or three in the
morning.
All that has been said about Bonaparte's immoderate use of snuff has
no more foundation in truth than his pretended partiality for coffee. It is
true that at an early period of his life he began to take snuff, but it was
very sparingly, and always out of a box; and if he bore any resemblance
to Frederick the Great, it was not by filling his waistcoat- pockets with
snuff, for I must again observe he carried his notions of personal
neatness to a fastidious degree.
Bonaparte had two ruling passions, glory and war. He was never more
gay than in the camp, and never more morose than in the inactivity of
peace. Plans for the construction of public monuments also pleased his
imagination, and filled up the void caused by the want of active

occupation. He was aware that monuments form part of the history of
nations, of whose civilisation they bear evidence for ages after those
who created them have disappeared from the earth, and that they
likewise often bear false-witness to remote posterity of the reality of
merely fabulous conquests. Bonaparte was, however, mistaken as to the
mode of accomplishing the object he had in view. His ciphers, his
trophies, and subsequently his eagles, splendidly adorned the
monuments of his reign. But why did he wish to stamp false initials on
things with which neither he nor his reign had any connection; as, for
example the old Louvre? Did he imagine that the letter, "N" which
everywhere obtruded itself on the eye, had in it a charm to controvert
the records of history, or alter the course of time?
--[When Louis XVIII. returned to the Tuileries in 1814 he found that
Bonaparte had been an excellent tenant, and that he had left everything
in very good condition.]--
Be this as it may, Bonaparte well knew that the fine arts entail lasting
glory on great actions, and consecrate the memory of princes who
protect and encourage them. He oftener than once said to me, "A great
reputation is a great poise; the more there is made, the farther off it is
heard. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but the noise
continues and resounds in after ages." This was one of his favourite
ideas. "My power," he would say at other times, "depends on my glory,
and my glory on my victories. My power would fall were I not to
support it by new glory and new victories. Conquest has made me what
I am, and conquest alone can maintain me." This was then, and
probably always continued to be, his predominant idea, and that which
prompted him continually to scatter the seeds of war through Europe.
He thought that if he remained stationary ha would fall, and he was
tormented with the desire of continually advancing. Not to do
something great and decided was, in his opinion, to do nothing. "A
newly-born Government," said he to me, "must dazzle and astonish.
When it ceases to do that it falls." It was vain to look for rest from a
man who was restlessness itself.
His sentiments towards France now differed widely from what I had

known them to